Manual process to add the ESXi driver for Intel vRAN Accelerator adapter.

You must enable the support for Intel vRAN Accelerator adapter in the VMware ESXi server, before you can configure it in VMware Telco Cloud Automation.

Procedure

  1. Download the Intel vRAN Baseband Driver and Tools for VMware ESXi package.

    1. Download the 2.1 version of Intel vRAN Baseband Driver and Tools for VMware ESXi package from Intel site : https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/19758/intel-vran-baseband-driver-and-tools-for-vmware-esxi.html.

      Note:

      The 2.1 version of Intel vRAN Baseband Driver and Tools work on ESX 8.0.U1 and above. For other ESX versions, use either 1.0.8 (For ESX 8.x) or 1.0.6 (For ESX 7.x) version of driver and tools. The procedure for which is outlined in earlier version of this user guide.

    2. This is the single .tar.gz file which contains both Driver and Tools.

    3. Copy the downloaded .tar.gz file to the ESXi host where the devices are present.

  2. Install the .tar.gz file on the VMware ESXi host.

    1. Switch the ESXi host into the maintenance mode. To switch the ESXi server into maintenance mode, power down the virtual machines running on the host. You can also migrate the virtual machines using vMotion. For details on maintenance mode, see maintenance mode.

    2. Log in to the ESXi host shell, and run the following command:

    # esxcli software component apply -d <full path to .tar.gz> --no-sig-check

    For example,

    [root@w2-hs6-b2205:~] esxcli software component apply -d /tmp/Intel-vran_2.1.0.134-1OEM.800.1.0.20613240_22107919.zip Installation Result   
      Message: The update completed successfully, but the  
              system needs to be rebooted for the changes to   
              be effective.   
      Components Installed: Intel-vran_2.1.0.134-  
                           1OEM.800.1.0.20613240   
      Components Removed:   
      Components Skipped:   
      Reboot Required: true   
      DPU Results:

    After the driver is successfully installed and loaded, check the description of the lspci command:

    [root@w2-hs6-b2205:~] lspci | grep acc0000:4b:00.0 Processing accelerators: Intel Corporation vRAN ACC100 PF